One of my favorite passages from the Bible is the story laid out in 2 Chronicles 30. Obscure? Yes, definitely, but relevant. Let me set the stage...
The king of Judah is a guy named Hezekiah. His father, Ahaz, was king before Hezekiah and did a pretty terrible job of it. Ahaz got his butt kicked by just about everyone and led the people away from God. I'm not sure how Hezekiah ended up so good when his dad was a super jerk, but it happened.
Chapter 30 joins Hezekiah as he's preparing for one of the biggest celebrations of the Jewish calendar, one that hadn't been properly observed in a long time. The Passover, a celebration of God delivering their people from Egypt, was a big deal. It was important to the young king for everything to go right.
But there was a problem: he had just finished a major renovation/rededication project to the temple in their capitol city, and there wasn't enough time to put everything together. The Passover was supposed to be held at a certain time of the year, and there was no way to make it happen on time.
Beyond that, Hezekiah had this crazy idea of not just inviting the people from his country of Judah, but extending the invitation to Israel to the north, along with Manasseh and Ephraim. If you're not super familiar with all the geo-political implications of this move, Judah had been a part of Israel back in the day, but they split into two separate factions after a big dispute about who was the rightful king. In fact, one of the countries that had been kicking Ahaz's butt was Israel. There was some bad blood going on between these two countries, for sure.
Instead of sending an army to try to avenge his father's losses, Hezekiah sends words of reconciliation to his neighbors. He ends his message to them with the following:
"If you return to the Lord, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him."
Hezekiah, the priests, and "the whole assembly in Jerusalem" choose to break the rules about when the Passover is commanded to be celebrated. Maybe they broke it so they could keep moving forward with the momentum they gained from restoring the temple. Maybe it was so that the messengers could have extra time to invite Israel. Maybe it was a little of both.
The invitation is laughed at by many, but chapter 30 also reveals that some of those who were far removed from Judah heard and accepted the offer. It ends with a huge party that the people just refuse to let end, so an extra week gets tacked onto the celebration. That text even mentions that foreigners living in Judah and Israel get in on the action! God's providence in the past is remembered with joy, and certainty of God's nearness in the present is proclaimed.
The reason I love this passage so much is that it gives me hope for reconciliation. As I wrote about on Monday, unity is a big deal for me. Hezekiah shows that not only is reconciliation worth working for, but it is also something that the people of God have bent/broken the rules for in the past. It was against what was written about how to observe the Passover, but it seemed right to the king and the people, so they did it. Instead of being struck down for their impudence, Hezekiah gets described as someone who "...did what was right in the eyes of the Lord..." in the previous chapter.
While I don't take this passage to be a blank check for breaking every rule God set forth as long as I can couch my reasoning in the name of unity, it encourages me that sometimes the people of God can love and invite others into community, even when doing so is against the letter of the law. I want to be the kind of person that looks for creative ways to show the world God's love, even if that means some laws aren't upheld for the sake of the unity God desires.
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